Friday, April 1, 2016

* Peru: The archbishop of Arequipa has come under fire after he claimed that presidential candidates Alfredo Barnechea and Veronika Mendoza should be barred from running due to their support of abortion and same-sex marriage.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

* Mexico: A new Human Rights Watch report concluded that Mexican immigration officials broke the law as part of their push to deport thousands of unaccompanied minors from Central American states ravaged by violence.

* Brazil: Brazil may be mired in a political crisis and ongoing recession but that hasn’t stopped the Bovespa stock index and national currency to improve by around 19% and 10% this year, respectively.

* Puerto Rico: A proposal by the House Natural Resources Committee to alleviate Puerto Rico’s nearly $70 billion dollar debt has allegedly been assailed by commonwealth politicians and officials.

* Ecuador: Will WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange end his asylum later this year at the Ecuadoran embassy in London where he has been protected since 2012?

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

It may be presumptuous to discuss the 2018 Brazilian presidential race amidst the current political crisis shaking up the South American state. But the growing distrust by Brazilians against their leaders seems to be reflected in the results of a recent poll.

According to a Datafolha survey conducted from March 17 to 18, a plurality of respondents opted for Marina Silva, a former senator and presidential candidate. Silva, who ran as an outsider for the Socialist Party (PSB) in 2014, received 21% backing in the poll if she were to run as an independent. Accounting for the margin of error, she would be in a statistical dead heat with 2014 presidential election runner up Aécio Neves and embattled ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Yet her support climbs to 24% if she were to run as representative of the conservative opposition PDSB, while backing of Lula has plummeted in light of his suspected role in the “Lava Jato” corruption scandal.

Silva was allied to the ruling Workers Party and served as an environmental minister under Lula from 2003 to 2008. The long-time environmental activist resigned, however, amid disgust over his lack of strong conservation policies. She unsuccessfully ran for president twice including four years ago when she was succeeded Eduardo Campos after he died in a plane crash. She became among the favorites in the polls to make it to the runoff and was backed mainly by social conservatives, middle class Brazilians upset at the government led by Dilma Rousseff, and young voters people turned off by the traditional political establishment. Battling against the existing political machinery along with doubts among some in the PSB seemed to have worked against her, however, and she was trounced in the first round by Neves and eventual victor Rousseff.

* Chile: President Michelle Bachelet of Chile said her government could countersue Bolivia at the International Court of Justice regarding a dispute over water rights from the Silala River located in a border region.

* Brazil: A group of Brazilian legislators called for relaxing the country’s harsh gun laws even though 60,000 homicides took place in the country in 2014.

* Puerto Rico: A U.S. federal judge sided with Wal-Mart and quashed a law that raised taxes wealthy companies paid “on goods they buy from ‘related parties’” in debt-ridden Puerto Rico.

YouTube Source – CCTV News (“Bolivia argues it owns the Silala River and is not being compensated for Chile's use of the water. Chile argues that the water flows across their shared border and therefore it constitutes as an international river.”)Online Sources – NPR, Fortune, Sky Sports, euronews, ABC News

Monday, March 28, 2016

* El Salvador: “We have ordered all of our people . . . to halt all types of homicides nationwide,” said a masked figure purportedly representing the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs in a video claiming that both groups will renew an anti-murder truce.

Update: El Salvador's police chief and a spokesman for President Salvador Sánchez Cerén eachrejected the possibility of negotiating with the gangs.* U.S.: Santiago Erevia, a former U.S. Army sergeant who in 2014 received the Medal of Honor after decades of racial discrimination, passed away last week at the age of 69.

* Cuba: Ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the island last week even though Obama held multiple talks with current Fidel’s brother and current Cuban President Raul Castro.